The slate of July economic data:

• July retail sales +0.6% vs +1.5% y/y expected
• Prior +1.0%
• July industrial output +4.5% vs +4.8% y/y expected
• Prior +5.3%
• July fixed-asset investment -6.7% vs -6.0% y/y expected
• Prior -5.7%
• July property investment -19.2% y/y
• Prior -18.0%
• July new home prices -0.1% m/m
• Prior -0.1%
• July new home prices -3.2% y/y
• Prior -3.3%

Soft numbers all around and they are pretty bad, even for recent bad-news-from-China standards. The deepening declines in fixed-asset and property investments continue to signal that the overall market is struggling hard. And even the supposed one bright spot i.e. retail sales was very much a disappointment. That is despite Beijing’s efforts to prop up activity through the likes of consumer trade-in programmes.

As mentioned earlier, domestic demand conditions remain in the dumps and the data above continues to underscore that sentiment for the most part.

It’s a poor set of numbers all in all, which is arguably the reason why Beijing did not want them released during market hours. Chinese indices closed over 1% higher today to roughly one-month highs but with data like this, the gains today may also be in part due to some buying by the ‘plunge protection team’. That to try and make things look nicer and distract from the terrible report above.

The data above points to further trouble on the ground in China to start Q3 2027, which follows from a poor showing in the previous quarter. For some context, China’s Q2 GDP saw a 4.3% year-on-year expansion – the weakest since 2022 – and missed on expectations of 4.5%.

This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.